The French aircraft manufacturer has developed a concept where car, drone, and hyperloop are united in a trinity of vehicles.

If it’s up to Airbus, you only need to use a single vehicle in the future – no matter where you are going.

The French aircraft manufacturer has presented the Pop.Up concept, which is a concept of transportation in the megacities of the future.

If their vision becomes true, you will travel in a kind of multifunctional passenger compartment in the future.

Aircraft, car and train in one

Pop.Up envisages a modular system for multi-modal transportation’. The vehicle is not an independent vehicle per se but can be connected to different modules.

At the heart of the concept is a capsule designed to accommodate passengers. This high-tech, monocoque carbon fiber cocoon measures 2.6 meters long, 1.4 meters high, and 1.5 meters wide.

The capsule can transform itself into a car by simply coupling to the ground module, which features a carbon-fibre chassis and is battery powered.

It transforms into an air vehicle, carried by a 5 by 4.4-metre air module propelled by eight counter-rotating rotors.

Addressing transportation in future megacities

The concept is intended to address the mobility challenges of megacities. With traffic congestion projected to hugely increase by 2030, Airbus concluded that the future of city transportation is not only to drive but also fly and to travel by train for extreme speed.

With the help of the wheelbase module, Pop.Up takes you through the city like a regular car, but for megacity routes with high congested traffic, the wheels are replaced by an air module that can take of vertically and propel the passengers through the air, efficiently avoiding traffic congestion on the ground.

If you want to go very far, however, the coupé attaches to other coupes and forms a train intended for transport in a Hyperloop– a frictionless high-speed tunnel. Perhaps underground, The Boring Company anyone?

Arificial Intelligence controled

The entire journey is controlled by an A.I and all you need to do is to specify where you want to be picked up and dropped off. The modular system will be used to take you from A to B in the most efficient manner possible.

You will be provided with information on a heads-up display using augmented reality. The artificial intelligence also reads your mood and sets the light within capsule accordingly.

The concept was developed in cooperation with the design company Italdesign, with several famous cars on their CV – including the ‘DeLorean DMC-12’ time machine from the Back to the Future movies.

Pop.Up is entirely a concept of the ‘future’ and Airbus has not announced any possible production date.

Reference:

Airbus: Pop.Up – Modular ground and air passenger concept vehicle